Booklist, Horn Book, Kirkus

Booklist, Horn Book, Kirkus, SLJ

On the first night of rioting in the wake of the Rodney King verdict, Jordan's father leaves to check on the family store, spurring twelve-year-old Jordan and his friends to embark on a dangerous journey through South Central and Koreatown to come to his aid, encountering the racism within their community as they go.

Twelve-year-old Javari Harris leaves his Brooklyn neighborhood for a two-week STEM camp in West Virginia. Nestled in the Appalachian Mountains, the town and camp are unlike anything Javari has experienced before. Javari doesn't make friends with his fellow STEM campers, but does meet a local boy named Cricket who invites him out at night to see the real community and help him uncover the truth behind contaminated water in the area. By the end of his stay, Javari gets an education and an epic experience--though it may not be the one he was expecting.

Eleven-year-old Laura Rodríguez Colón adjusts to life with her aunt Titi Silvia after her parents enter rehab, finding solace in a stray puppy named Sparrow and embarking on a journey to train her as a therapy dog, ultimately learning to accept her circumstances and find love and forgiveness for her parents despite their struggles.

Booklist, Kirkus, Publishers Wkly, SLJ

When twelve-year-old Norwegian Tuva begins seventh grade, she notices shifts in her friendships, such as Linnea getting a boyfriend and Bao vowing to never have one. Caught in the middle of pressures from both of them, Tuva begins confiding in her diary about whether she needs to be more mature, her feelings for a cool girl named Miriam, and why everything has to change.

Booklist, Horn Book, Kirkus, Publishers Wkly, SLJ

Wesley Wilder's hopeful plans for Indigenous Peoples' Day (and asking her crush, fellow gamer Ryan Thomas, to the dance) go all wrong until she finds herself surrounded by the love of her Indigenous family and community at the intertribal powwow.

Booklist, Kirkus, Publishers Wkly

Autistic twelve-year-old Selah Godfrey has just started seventh grade at a new private school, where she's learned the rules of being a "normal person." During the day, she holds in her feelings until they get to be too much and then she escapes to a bathroom stall to calm down. One day, when a girl begins braiding her hair without permission, Selah lashes out and gets in trouble at school. Taking advice from her grandfather, she begins to write about her thoughts and feelings in a notebook. Feeling empowered by her words, she begins using them to explain her differences to her teachers and peers helping them to understand and celebrate who she is.

Shaindy Goodman has always felt awkward and overlooked, so it is to her great surprise that Gayil--the elegant, gorgeous queen bee of Bais Yaakov Middle School--invites her to sneak into their school with her after hours and commit some harmless pranks in their classroom. Mischief soon turns into malice as Shaindy realizes Gayil is targeting only certain other girls for humiliation. Shaindy must figure out what these girls have in common before she draws Gayil's ire and becomes her next victim.

Pedro Martin embarks on a trip to Mexico with eleven of his family members in their Winnebago to help move their abuelito to the United States to live with them. However, their grandfather won't move until he finishes a quest that becomes a part of Pedro's unforgettable journey.

In 2022, while the world emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, twelve-year-old Imogen works through the isolation she feels from racial violence and pandemic losses. In the year 2111, Eleven, who has blue skin, is kept in a cell, she's told, due to a pandemic raging outside. Her only source of comfort is her dog, who's prone to fits of "going wolf." What Eleven soon learns, however, is that she's being held as a biological match for the president's son, in case he falls ill. The lives of the girls converge in a story that exposes the effects of systemic racism, generational trauma, and how one's skin color can be a source of empowerment.

Booklist, Kirkus, Publishers Wkly, SLJ

Autistic thirteen-year-old Maudie McGinn loves spending the summers with her dad in Molinas, California, but this year she's weighed down by a secret her mother forces her to keep about her home life in Houston. When she and her father must relocate to Southern California due to threats of a wildfire at his home, Maudie makes friends with a local surfer crowd and enters an end-of-summer competition, but as the end of summer nears, Maudie worries about returning to Houston and to the secret she's been keeping.

Set in the early days of the Syrian Civil War, Kareem leaves Damascus to live with his cousin Samira in Massachusetts where the teens navigate the growing conflict in Syria, new friendships, and the use of graffiti art to express messages of freedom.

Callie Crossland, a Cherokee and Black student in Rye, Virginia, challenges her school's mascot, the Braves, leading to a thought-provoking exploration of the pros and cons of indigenous mascots through essays from various perspectives, ultimately shedding light on the complexities of identity and cultural representation.

Booklist, Kirkus, Publishers Wkly, SLJ

For most of their life, twelve-year-old River Rydell has know they can see and talk to monsters. In their dreams, River even visits the Otherwoods, a terrifying place filled with the creatures. River doesn't speak about their encounters, no one would believe them anyway, and it would only add to the alienation they already feel. Fortunately, River has a friend in Avery, a girl with whom they've developed a crush. When Avery is abducted by creatures from the Otherworld, River undertakes a terrifying journey to save her with their cat Pancakes and a teen spirit guide named Xavier, but facing their own insecurity and anxiety is just as terrifying as the monsters in the realm.

Growing up in Brooklyn's Bushwick neighborhood, eleven-year-old Sage loves playing basketball and discussing the Knicks latest game with her new friend Freddy. A series of arsons in their neighborhood have displaced a number of families in the community and are responsible for the death of her father, who was a firefighter. She's increasingly feeling alienated from the neighborhood group of girls she used to hang out with as they become more interested in makeup and their appearance, and when the boys she plays basketball with question her identity, she begins to feel she doesn't belong anywhere. The loss of a friend in a fire becomes a tipping point for Sage who finds her memories painful to think about, but necessary to process in order for her to move forward.

The COVID-19 lockdown exacerbated thirteen-year-old nonbinary Shai Stern's anxiety and they developed a skin picking habit. Reading online that routines can help, Shai enters public school for the first time, where a changing friendship and romantic feelings for a girl threaten to derail their progress.

Seventh grader Sharkita "Kita" Lloyd's family was separated over the summer--her siblings in a separate foster home from her and her mother in treatment--and ever since they have been back together, she's fearful it will happen again. Kita knows her mother is trying to stay sober; she's even allowed her to join a dance team. But Kita doesn't trust her mother to follow through, so she does everything she can to hold their family together on her own. But soon everything begins falling apart, and Kita's must face her worst nightmare and realize that she isn't responsible for her mother's choices.

SLJ, ALA, Horn Book, Kirkus, PW

Ghost, a naturally talented runner and troublemaker, is recruited for an elite middle school track team. Each subsequent book focused on a particular character/issue.

In this compelling and heartfelt mystery story, follow a young girl reshaping her meaning of home.

When her little brother Hamza opens the forbidden Box of the Moon, 12-year-old Amira must journey to a mystical land to prevent the moon, the barrier between realms, from unleashing a nightmare on Earth.

Based on a true story, the tale of one girl's perilous journey to cross the U.S. border and lead her family to safety during the Mexican Revolution

A boy and his mother refuse to identify themselves as American or Canadian at the border and become caught in the limbo between nations when they claim their citizenship as Blackfoot.

A laugh-out-loud, action packed adventure filled with epic battles! friendship! annoying older brothers! annoying older sisters! good guys! bad guys! inappropriate jokes! mangoes! magic! and much, much more!

‎9781984814982

Seventh graders Fonda, Drew, and Ruthie develop a friendship strong enough to tackle whatever middle school--and puberty--throws at them next.

Bronx middle-grader Addy, who struggles with a family tragedy by drawing maps and studying mazes, joins other city youngsters on a wilderness adventure in California that turns deadly when wildfires erupt.

Twelve-year-old Hector Muñoz, fleeing from bullies, discovers a magical closet that not only provides him sanctuary, but also unites him with two other kids facing similar problems at their own schools, helping them find friendship and strength in each other.

Bell has spent his whole life - all eleven years of it - on Mars. But he's still just a regular kid - he loves cats, any kind of cake, and is curious about the secrets the adults in the US colony are keeping. Like, why don't have contact with anyone on the other Mars colonies? Why are they so isolated? When a virus breaks out and the grown-ups all fall ill, Bell and the other children are the only ones who can help. It's up to Bell - a regular kid in a very different world - to uncover the truth and save his family ... and possibly unite an entire planet.

Aidan disappeared for six days. Six agonizing days of searches and police and questions and constant vigils. Then, just as suddenly as he vanished, Aidan reappears. Where has he been? The story he tells is simply. . . impossible. But it's the story Aidan is sticking to. His brother, Lucas, wants to believe him. But Lucas is aware of what other people, including their parents, are saying: that Aidan is making it all up to disguise the fact that he ran away. When the kids in school hear Aidan's story, they taunt him. But still Aidan clings to his story. And as he becomes more of an outcast, Lucas becomes more and more concerned. Being on Aidan's side would mean believing in the impossible. But how can you believe in the impossible when everything and everybody is telling you not to?

Through a bedtime story to her daughters, a woman weaves together her immigration story and Pilipino mythology. Includes glossary, songs, and author's note.

In this graphic novel adaptation of his bestselling collection of essays, legendary news anchor Dan Rather provides a voice of reason and explores what it means to be a true patriot.

Yusuf is excited to start middle school in his small Texas town, but with the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 attacks coming up, suddenly it feels like the country's same anger and grief is all focused on his Muslim community.

Charlotte Huck Award

After researching Glenn Burke, the first major league baseball player to come out as gay, sixth-grader Silas Wade slowly comes out to his best friend Zoey, then his coach, with unexpected consequences.

Lehka, 11, spends her days navigating the micro- and macroaggressions from her classmates and feeling like she has to hide who she is as an Indian American kid in suburban Detroit. When a new girl from India joins her class, Lehka learns more about herself, her culture, and standing up for what’s right.

Coretta Scott King

ZJ's friends Ollie, Darry and Daniel help him cope when his father, a beloved professional football player, suffers severe headaches and memory loss that spell the end of his career.

Sometimes, 12-year-old Donte wishes he were invisible. As one of the few black boys at Middlefield Prep, most of the students don't look like him. They don't like him either. Dubbing him "Black Brother," Donte's teachers and classmates make it clear they wish he were more like his lighter-skinned brother, Trey.

It's Trevor Noah : born a crime : stories from a South African childhood : adapted for young readers

Looks at the life of South African comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host, Trevor Noah.

In a small but turbulent Louisiana town, one boy's grief takes him beyond the bayous of his backyard, to learn that there is no right way to be yoursel

Pura Belpre Honor

Lupe Wong is going to be the first female pitcher in the Major Leagues. She's also championed causes her whole young life. Lupe needs an A in all her classes in order to meet her favorite pitcher, Fu Li Hernandez, who's Chinacan/Mexinese just like her. So when the horror that is square dancing rears its head in gym? Obviously she's not gonna let that slide.

Once upon an Eid : stories of hope and joy by 15 Muslim voices

The editors of this book have gathered a roster of #OwnVoices Muslim authors to highlight the diversity within Islam and to explore the meaning of and otherworldly feelings associated with Eid.

Eleven-year-old sixth-grader Rick’s best friend ever is Jeff, who, let’s face it, is a bit of a jerk. Aside from being a troublemaker, Jeff objectifies girls, one of them being a new girl, Melissa. At least Rick thinks she’s new, until he realizes that he has known her since she was the protagonist of Gino’s first novel, George

Schneider Family Book Award

It is 1805 and Mary Lambert has always felt safe among the deaf community of Chilmark on Martha's Vineyard where practically everyone communicates in a shared sign language, but recent events have shattered her life; her brother George has died, land disputes between English settlers and the Wampanoag people are becoming increasingly bitter, and a "scientist" determined to discover the origins of the islands' widespread deafness has decided she makes the perfect "live specimen"--and kidnapped her.

Through a gripping, fast-paced, and energizing narrative written by beloved award-winner Jason Reynolds, this book shines a light on the many insidious forms of racist ideas--and on ways readers can identify and stamp out racist thoughts in their daily lives.

Alberta was the only Black girl in town until Edie and her mom moved into the bed-and-breakfast down the street. Though Edie and Alberta don’t have much in common, their shared experience as Black girls, and a mystery surrounding the journals found in Edie’s attic, brings them together. This book bravely takes on conversations of race and racism, with a cast of dynamic characters and a plethora of nontraditional family structures.

Stephen is a biracial kid growing up in New York City who feels like life is constantly challenging him to pick a lane—Black friends or white friends? He doesn’t want to choose, but he’s finding it increasingly hard not to see racism in how he and others are treated.

Schneider Family Book Award, Charlotte Huck Award

SLJ*, Kirkus*, Booklist*

Omar and his younger brother, Hassan, have spent most of their lives in Dadaab, a refugee camp in Kenya. Life is hard there: never enough food, achingly dull, and without access to the medical care Omar knows his nonverbal brother needs. So when Omar has the opportunity to go to school, he knows it might be a chance to change their future . . . but it would also mean leaving his brother, the only family member he has left, every day.

The train that passes near Manuel's family farm in Mexico is called The Beast, and Beast Riders are those who jump onto this moving train headed toward the U.S. Manuel has a loving family, but life on the farm is difficult, and he longs to be reunited with his older brother who reached Los Angeles four years earlier. He slips away from home one night at the age of 12 and becomes a Beast Rider himself.

In January 1963, Sharon Robinson turns thirteen the night before George Wallace declares on national television "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" in his inauguration speech as governor of Alabama. It is the beginning of a year that will change the course of American history.

There’s a lot going on in Emilia Torres’s life. On the day her mom leaves town for a job interview, her dad gets home from a long deployment and something isn’t quite right with him. Abuela is trying to run her life, Emilia has an unusual type of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and, worst of all, a class assignment splits students down the middle and creates a rift between kids who have been friends for years.

Rex Ogle recounts his first semester in sixth grade in which he and his younger brother often went hungry, wore secondhand clothes, and were short of school supplies and he was on his school's free lunch program. Grounded in the immediacy of physical hunger and the humiliation of having to announce it every day in the school lunch line, Rex's is a compelling story of a more profound hunger -- that of a child for his parents' love and care.

Genesis comes home from school to find her family's belongings on the lawn; they've been evicted again. Her father promises that this next time will be different, renting a house in the suburbs and promising that he will get a promotion at work so they can afford it. At school, Genesis makes friends for the first time and is mentored by Mrs. Hill, the choir teacher, but Genesis's father still drinks too much and her parents' marriage is unraveling. Genesis tries lightening her skin, begs to be able to use relaxer in her hair, and keeps a list of things she hates about herself, believing that if she only looked like her light-skinned mother and not her dark-skinned father, the situation at home would improve

Growing up at the end of apartheid, he was evidence of a crime s mother was Black and his father was white, and mixed-race children were illegal d it made him an outsider. Noah grew up understanding that many aspects of his upbringing were fundamentally different: his mother raised him with an imagination and showed that there were no barriers to whatever he wanted to be. Readers will find this journey through Noah's formative years humorous and exciting.

BFFs T.J. and Jasmine find their yearslong friendship getting them through parental separation, illness, and foster care. A group of four, all children of cancer survivors, has been brought together by a school counselor. A female skateboarder is the target of a bully—to the relief of his usual victim. A teen with the signs of OCD meets a street musician who changes her outlook. Two ardent gamers are caught up in the confusion of sexual questioning, and there’s an odd couple of friends whose difference in size is no barrier to their bond. A teen with a fear of dogs devises an elaborate plan to get past his neighbor’s new pet, and the class clown tries to find a way to make her overworked mother laugh. Three boys work to make their friend presentable enough to tell a classmate that he likes her. An accident sustained by the school crossing guard causes her son significant anxiety.

Coretta Scott King author award, Newbery award

Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade

Twelve-year-old Jude lives in a coastal tourist town in Syria where many people go to get away. While Jude wants to become a movie star, her older brother, Issa, wants more from their future than the oppression overtaking their beloved country. As the tumult crawls closer to Jude's home, Issa yearns to join the revolution in Aleppo, Baba refuses to leave his seaside store, and Mama believes the safest place for Jude, herself, and the baby she is carrying is with Jude's Uncle Mazin and Aunt Michelle in America.

978-0-525-55491-2

When seventeen-year-old Jay Reguero learns his Filipino cousin and former best friend, Jun, was murdered as part of President Duterte's war on drugs, he flies to the Philippines to learn more.

There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille are taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their life. But when Jam meets Pet, a creature made of horns and colors and claws, who emerges from one of her mother's paintings and a drop of Jam's blood, she must reconsider what she's been told.

Two crime-fighting Latinx siblings star in this series starter that’s perfect for readers who like their superhero stories with a heavy dose of humor. Red Panda’s hoodie, complete with ears and a tail, gives her “the power of twelve fully grown red pandas,” while her brother, Moon Bear, sports a blue hoodie and a gauntlet holding a mysterious magical crystal of unknown power.

Sal Vidón is attending a new school, with new bullies and new teachers who don't understand the needs of a student with Type 1 diabetes. He also causes rips in time and space by transporting objects from other universes. Sometimes he transports harmless prank items, but sometimes he goes home to find his long-dead mother cooking yucca in the kitchen. When Sal meets Gabi Reál, student body president and all-around firebrand, they begin a friendship that may break the universe—or save it.

In this stirring companion to her acclaimed memoir Enchanted Air, the Young People's Poet Laureate recounts the tumultuous late 60s and early 70s—a perfect parallel to her turbulent high school and college years.

Schneider Family award

From fixing the class computer to repairing old radios, twelve-year-old Iris is a tech genius. But she's the only deaf person in her school, so people often treat her like she's not very smart.

Grace, a young transgender woman, is attempting to outrun the Civil War. Though she identifies as female, she was assigned male at birth. The Confederate army in her native Georgia sees her as a worthy soldier, but she’s got other plans.

Lane Disanti is spending the summer with her grandmother as she tries to get used to a newly fractured family. Lane decides to create a secret club to make some friends of her own.